An elderly fisherman in Florida has revealed how he survived a near-fatal attack in which an alligator bit down on his leg before trying to drag him into the water.
James Grayson McMicken, 71, was fishing in a canal behind his home in North Fort Myers on July 3 when the attack happened.
He had gone to the local spot with his bulldog but had barely had the chance to cast his fishing rod into the water before the alligator struck.
‘I started reeling and it jumped out of the water and grabbed me,’ he told local news channel WPEC Florida, adding that it was only quick thinking which saved him from being pulled in.
‘I stuck my thumb in one eye, and I just took that fishing pole and jabbed him in the other eye and jabbed him and jabbed him and jabbed him,’ he explained.
‘It seemed like forever, but it wasn’t that long. But then, he turned loose.’
He added: ‘I’ve always heard that if you’ve got no other choice, get them eyes, and that’s what got him off of me.’
While his life may have been saved, the attack left McMicken with deep bite wounds on his right leg , leaving him to rely upon his dog to get to his feet, stagger home and get help.
‘I’d have never made it crawling this far, so I called my dog over. She stood there and let me get up on her back to where I could get stood up,’ he said, adding that he was ‘exhausted’ by the time he got home and received help from his wife.
After being treated for his wounds, which involved both stitches and staples in his injured leg, McMicken is now recovering at home while he waits to start physical therapy.
However, he insisted that despite his brush with death he hopes to return to his favourite hobby soon.
He added: ‘All the nurses on the floor had to come by and go, “Wow, you did what”? I’m going to do everything I can not to die. No gator is going to run me off.’
McMicken’s attack comes just days after a woman was tragically killed by an alligator in Seminole County, Florida.
Brittany Clark, 31, who had been hiking with her boyfriend and best friend, died after wading into the Econlockhatchee River in Little Big Econ state forest, around 25 miles north-east of Orlando.
The three were three feet deep in the water when an alligator bit her arms, tearing off one and catastrophically mauling the other.
Her boyfriend Chance Allison tried to fight off the 12-foot crocodilian, but it snatched them both into a death roll, a technique used by the species to kill prey underwater by violently twisting.
Clark’s friend Jayden Hernandez called her dad, Robert, amid the frantic scene before help arrived for the fatally injured hiker, but she was pronounced dead before she reached hospital.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) called the incident ‘incredibly tragic’.
Its public information officer Chad Weber said the cause of the attack remained unclear but factors could have included current low water levels in the state combined with the end of mating season, and the creatures becoming territorial as a result.
On the same day, an 11-year-old boy on holiday with his father in Florida was bitten on the hand by an alligator while fishing.
The New York Post reported that Brodie Terry lost a hand in the attack, which occurred at Florida’s Nelson Fish Camp in Marion County.
Despite these recent incidents, alligator attacks on humans in the Sunshine State remain comparatively rare.
Florida is home to around 1.3 million alligators, which live in all of the state’s 67 counties, with the FWC reporting around 500 unprovoked bites having occurred since they began collecting data on attacks in 1948.
According to their records, as of 2026 only 32 of these recorded attacks proved fatal. However, Weber said anybody close to water in the state should be mindful of the risks.
‘Every body of water could have the potential to have an alligator,’ he explained. ‘There is some risk when you swim.’